To cope with his problems, Steve consults Amy (Norma Tuccinardi), an unhelpful witch whose cringing minion Zork (Nick Tuccinardi) has tin cans instead of hands (in a signing world, the equivalent of having his tongue torn out). Scotland Yard’s Inspector Butterfield teams up with a moustached cop (Lee Darrel) to trap the killer. The detectives don’t suspect their good friend Steve – though they have a long (signed) conversation about his habit of eating peanuts in their shells, later a significant clue. Dracula, for some reason, is interred in a nearby cave, where Deafula has a primal confrontation with his evil sire and his resurrected mother. After that, Deafula is overcome by religious décor in his father’s church (cf: Taste the Blood of Dracula) and lies down dead (but purged).
Wolf stretches thin resources and tries for expressionist effects, but that papier mache nose and evil beard keep dragging the film to the level of Dracula, the Dirty Old Man. It’s sincere in its commitment to the deaf community, even indicating in the end credits which of the cast and crew were hearing-impaired. Of course, Wolf couldn’t hear the soundtrack and so can’t be blamed for flat line readings (proper subtitles would have made more sense) and intermittently ominous piano score. Some action scenes – including the death in a hypnosis-induced crash of a bad biker – run silent. It’d make an interesting double bill with the even cheaper all-deaf British werewolf movie Night Stalkers.
Extract from Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon.
